The Shades of Yoga Teacher Training is held in Ubud: a haven for healthy living, with dozens of the restaurants offering delicious raw, vegan and vegetarian meals. While working on your yoga practice and self-awareness, it’s ideal for experimenting with a completely new diet – and quickly, feel the benefits too!
Eating raw is often said to boost energy levels. Because the food is not heated enough to kill the enzymes, let alone the food itself, it still has all its life energy stored inside for you to ingest. This can mean a boost in energy leading to less need for sleep, and more rewarding sleep when you do need it!
If you think back to how the first humans would have eaten, cooking wasn’t an option so it makes sense that our bodies work well with raw food (this may include meat, but that is your dietary preference). Cooking not only destroys some of the antioxidants and enzymes in the food, it can also kill some of the bacteria that can be classed as “good”. Cooking foods in some oils can also produce traces of trans fats, which are very undesirable to add into our diet.
A raw diet, like other diets, will not suit everyone’s body type. Some people will find raw food is cleansing for the mind, body and soul – it can lead to a feeling of heightened awareness and sporadic thoughts, however for some people this is not necessarily positive. In terms of Ayurveda, it can lead Vatta types to become more Vatta!
For most people in the West, raw food may go only as far as a salad. In Bali, the abundance of fresh fruit, vegetables and other food stuffs mean raw eating is diverse and delicious, and has a number of health benefits as well. And raw eating does not necessarily mean just fruit and vegetables! It is actually defined as not heating food over 46ºC, which means that food can be prepared using a dehydrator or low temperature oven. This means even warm foods are possible! …So why not try it?
Shades of Yoga is a yoga teacher training company running year-round yoga teacher training courses in Bali and Costa Rica. Details here.
